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Story:Star Trek: Federalist/Time: The Final Frontier
"Captain Deet, may I have a word with you?" Lt. Atom Approached the Captain's chair. "Of course." The Captain stood up, gesturing for Quallo to take command, "In my ready room?" she asked Atom. The two officers stepped into the Captain's bridge side office. "Bolian Tonic, three degrees Celsius." the Captain stated to her replicator. "Take a seat. What's on your mind?" She prompted her Science Officer. "Captain, astrometric sensors are detecting an interesting phenomenon 2.3 light years from our present position. I've found a gas giant orbiting Nu Cygni that appears to be laden with an unusually high amount of chroniton particles." The Android informed the captain. "Is there a specific reason you want to study this planet?" Captain Deet inquired. Atom handed the Captain a PADD. "This is... a theory I've been waiting to see actualized." Captain Deet scrolled through pages of thorough data, mathematical equations, and cosmological theory. She set the PADD down on her desk, looking mildly exasperated. She glared up into the Android's waiting golden eyes, "Lieutenant, could you give me an abstract?" she smiled. "Of course Captain," he leaned forward "This planet's unusual chroniton field, along with it's relative size, allows us an unusual opportunity to attempt an experiment that I have postulated for some time. If we jump to warp in a precise manner, using the gravity of the planet to distort our course, we should be able to travel several minutes back in time. We can then reverse course, and return to the present..." "Yes, I'm familiar with the slingshot effect for time travel, but isn't that normally performed around a star?" The Captain asked. "It has typically been used around larger bodies than this planet, but in order to test my theory, we only need to travel several minutes through time to run this experiment." Atom Explained. "The goal is to use the ship's deflector to generate a tachyokinetic pulse while we orbit the planet. This will imprint the planet's chronometric field with our Tachyon signature. If we track the same course back to the present, again initiating the pulse at the same point in orbit; I believe we can open a temporal disruption in the orbit of this planet that is immune to the passage of time." "Lieutenant, your work here is impressive, and it certainly appears thorough," the Captain continued to page through the data, "but is Time something that we should be meddling with?" "Captain, any experiment has its risks, but the rewards could be immense." Atom seemed to show some semblance of passion through his emotionless Android exterior, "I do not believe the risk in this experiment is too great. We have an opportunity for incredible exploration here. Is exploration not our primary objective? Time may truly be our next frontier." Captain Deet was inspired by her mechanical officer. It seemed like the Federation had lost that sense of duty to explore. "The Klingons, the Borg, the Undine... the threats we face every day. Somewhere along the line, the fighting made us forget the risks we must take to evolve." She pondered to herself. "This is your mission, Mr. Atom. Prepare a flight plan. I assure you'll cross every 't' and dot every 'i'." Atom's face did not change, but somehow it seemed to exude happiness. "Thank you, Captain. I will begin preparations immediately." Deet looked down at her drink as the Android officer left her office. Playing with Time itself was a bold step in exploration, and she wondered if she was qualified to make that call. It wasn't like she was meddling with history, it was only a few-minute long jump, the risks would be minimal, but the evolution of such knowledge could change the future forever. She didn't care. The opportunity to take a step into a new realm was too exciting, and it reminded her of the Captain's oath she took. Her crew deserved a chance to serve for once on the front lines of exploration, rather than the front lines of battle. It was their chance to go boldly. --- Three days had passed before the Federalist was prepared to run the experiment. Every move had been carefully coordinated through the ship's computer by Lt. Atom. It was only a matter of moments before the coordinated sequence executed. "Are we ready to make history... literally?" The Captain cracked a very small joke. "Let's make this happen!" The excitement was abuzz as the crew skillfully carried out their orders. "The countdown sequence has initialized." Ensign En'thaaz reported. "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." he counted. "Engage!" Deet commanded. The Federalist jumped to warp from a distance out. As the ship grazed the gas giant's gravity well, telemetry pulled hard to starboard, whipping the ship at a hard angle toward a new vector at high warp. At the apex of the curve, the ship's deflector came abuzz, bombarding the planet's atmosphere with Tachyon radiation. The pulse seemed to disappear from sensors, as the ship traveled backward through the moments to a time shortly before it had activated the pulse. The ship dropped out of warp after what appeared to be just a second at speed. It coast to a stop on the far side of the planet. "Bring us about." the Captain ordered. "How far have we traveled?" she asked, as the planet came about on the viewscreen. "Three minutes, 14 seconds." Atom reported. "The key will be to time our return jump so that we engage the Tachyon pulse at the same spot, at the same moment. According to my calculation's we will want to engage in Two Minutes, 3 Seconds." "Make the necessary preparations." she ordered. The Aenar helmsman and Android science officer coordinated the return course quickly. Ensign En'thaaz reported "Readying countdown..." he counted back from ten to one again. The ship jumping to warp on an identical trip back the way they came. Again the deflector buzzed with energy, as they hit the center of the hard curve to port. This time, the planet responded differently, illuminating with energy. The ship exited warp at the experiment's originating coordinates. "Exactly where we started, Captain. Time and location unchanged." En'thaaz reported the successful run. "Bring the planet on screen." The Captain ordered. A ball of light was left tethered above the planet at a low orbit. Chroniton particles from the planet danced in a fluid stream toward the newly created anomaly. It was like watching two bodies coalesce in a temporal tango. Time seemed to stop where the chronitons flowed from the planet, while the orbiting anomaly maintained an absolutely motionless core within the strings of chroniton radiation that flowed around it. "It's beautiful..." she remarked in temporary awe. Gaining her composure, she inquired "Is it stable?" Atom seemed to share the awe against his programming. "Yes, Captain. Everything appears as my calculations predicted. It should be safe to bring the ship in closer." "Take us in." the Captain indicated to her helmsman. She turned to the back of the bridge, "Mr. Quallo, Prepare a probe to enter the anomaly, and return course to us." "Right away." The Ferengi Tactical officer reported. "Probe launching." The hollow sound of a shot firing from the lower hull echoed on the bridge. The viewscreen showed a class-6 probe leaving the ship's safety, and entering the perimeter of the anomaly. Instantaneously, the same class-6 probe re-appeared from the anomaly, this time turned back toward the ship. "Fascinating." Atom exclaimed as much as an Android could. "Uploading data... it appears that the probe was actually in the anomaly for 45 seconds. It entered the center of the anomaly, reversed course, and returned to us. But from our perspective, those 45 seconds passed instantaneously. It would appear that time does not pass within the anomaly." "Would it be safe to take the ship in?" The Captain asked. "I believe so. The probe shows no signs of damage, and detected no discernable radiation or energy discharge. Nothing seems to be happening within the anomaly. Not even the passage of time." Atom answered. "Has the probe been retrieved?" The Captain asked Quallo. "Aye, it's back in cargo bay 1." Quallo answered. "Take us in, Mr. En'thaaz." The helmsman nervously tapped his console as the ship lurched toward the anomaly they'd created. The hull let out an audible whine as the Federalist crossed the chroniton energy barrier. The transition was more smooth than anyone expected. The silence inside the anomaly was stunning. The usual hum of the Federalist's systems seemed muted by the nothingness that surrounded them. From the interior, the chroniton energy field that surrounded the anomaly was still, where it appeared to flow from outside. The planet below stopped rotating. The stars even seemed to lack a shimmering luster. The Federalist found itself enveloped in the pure stillness of a moment of time itself. "The anomaly is measuring at 900 meters in diameter." Quallo reported the measurement. "Talk about a place to get a moment to yourself..." The Ferengi played on the phrase. "Captain," Lt. Atom interjected "I believe we can influence the passage of time within this anomaly by releasing short pulses of chronitons or antichronitons. The anomaly draws chroniton particles from the planet in order to maintain a bubble in time. By its very nature, the passage of time relative to this anomaly is contingent on the flow of chronitons cycled through its tachyokinetic matrix. If we generate additional chronitons from within, time will move forward. If we generate antichronitons from within, existing chronitons will be neutralized, and time will move backward." "Fascinating." The Captain tried to comprehend the nuances. "Let's start very slow." "Agreed. Generating chroniton pulse, duration one millisecond." Lt. Atom estimated a conservative duration. The planet below flickered into motion through the outside of the anomaly. The chroniton barrier surrounding the anomaly flowed into motion momentarily. Time seemed to move for just an instant. "Based on the rotation of the planet below, it would appear that we've moved 4.37 seconds into the future." Atom reported in. The Captain answered "OK, now let's try a one millisecond antichroniton pulse." Atom reconfigured the emitters, executing the command. Time again flickered into motion, seemingly in exact reverse of what they had accomplished moments earlier. "We're back to our starting time, Captain." "Well that seems to work like clockwork..." The captain realized the play on words "No pun intended." "We should be able to go as far back in time as the creation of the anomaly. I do not believe we can go beyond that point, as the Tachyokinetic matrix would not yet exist." Atom informed his commanding officer. "Make it so." The ship emitted a short burst of antichronitons. As time passed backward, they observed the past Federalist moving backward in time outside the anomaly. "What's going on?" The Captain asked. "It appears that while we're within the anomaly, we are the only Federalist. But outside of the anomaly, our past selves will go about their actions as the already have." Atom speculated. "Can they detect us?" Captain Deet worried. "I don't believe so, as we did not detect ourselves." Atom stated matter of factly. Captain Deet lightly facepalmed, "Temporal mechanics..." she sighed. They watched as the past Federalist 'un-retrieved' the probe they'd launched earlier. The probe flew backward to the edge of the anomaly. When it reached the boundary, it simply disappeared. "Where did it go? It should've instantly returned to the Federalist." Deet inquired. Atom responded. "The probe spent 45 seconds within the anomaly. It should re-appear after that time." Another 40 seconds passed with stillness outside, and the probe materialized at the edge of the Anomaly backing up to the Federalist's launch tube. The Captain wondered aloud "Why didn't we encounter the probe in here?" "Because it is back aboard the ship in our cargo bay. Within the sphere of this anomaly, it seems two items can not exist simultaneously." Atom handled the temporal issues with ease. Time continued to march backward to the moment of formation. The federalist was frozen at a moment of high warp mere meters above the anomaly as it came into being. It was emitting a beam that intersected concentric rings of tachyokinetic particles that converged at the anomaly's location with a diameter of 900 meters. It was a stunning sight to see such an impressive moment in time frozen. "Alright, Mr. Atom. Take us back to the moment we entered the anomaly. Let's make sure we can get out of here before we celebrate this achievement." The Captain nervously joked. The chroniton particle buzzed as time returned to it's original state. The events of the past few minutes zipped by on the outside yet again. --- The Federalist left the confines of the anomaly safely. They had essentially created the Federation's first safe, repeatable, two way time machine- though one direction had an originating limit. Captain Deet stood up to check the ship's status with Lt. Atom, but the moment she stood, a flash of light filled her chair. "You have no idea what you've just done!" a man appeared sneering, wearing a Starfleet Captain's uniform. Aznia turned back startled. "Excuse me. I believe you're in my chair." she regained her cool. "You'd think Starfleet would have learned their lesson about Women Captains after Janeway got herself lost across the galaxy..." the arrogant man scoffed, shaking his head. "Now you threaten the entire time-space continuum." "Would you be Q?" Aznia deduced, recalling some high level briefings she'd been privy to. Q's demeanor turned slightly upbeat. "Oh, you've heard of me! It's wonderful to have such dedicated fans!" "I take it our experiment has drawn your attention?" Deet cut through the pretense. Q nodded. "Right to the point... I like that, Captain! Which makes my purpose here so much more painful." Captain Deet's face went stern. "What do you mean??" "I assure you, what I have to do is not out of malice. But there is just too much at stake!" Q snapped his fingers, disappearing. The ship began to tremble. Alerts began to sound on every console. Aznia's comm badge was raised from her Chief Engineer. "Captain! We've lost containment in the Warp Core, we're only seconds from a brea..." The warp core on the Federalist breached, sending a massive matter-antimatter explosion through every deck of the ship. The Federalist was ripped to pieces. All hands lost. --- The chroniton pulse had returned the Federalist to a period 10 seconds after they entered the anomaly. "Perhaps we should take a brief look forward before we leave." Lt. Atom suggested. "Very well." Captain Deet acquiesced to curiosity. "Move us 5 minutes into the future." The chroniton pulse resumed. The crew began to watch in amusement as the future Federalist left the anomaly from a point just a few moments after their original entry. The ship moved out to a point of survey, and after several more moments, the crew was horrified to watch helplessly as their future ship exploded. "What happened!?" The Captain shouted. The crew tapped at sensors and schematics, trying to piece together the information they'd acquired. "It looks like the warp core simply lost containment!" Quallo explained from a tactical sensor diagram. "What could've caused that!?" Aznia pleaded. She tapped her comm badge "Engineering! Take the warp core offline now!" The ship's humming inner workings slowed to a stop. The crew of the Federalist checked every system and subsystem for some reason that the explosion could've happened. There was no explanation. "We've got all the time in the world to check this out." Aznia stated to her senior officers. "I believe I have a a way to get us some additional data," Lt. Atom piped in. "The ship has already exploded once, and we were able to observe the phenomenon in the future. We could simply program our ship to relay all operational and sensor data through a compressed stream, into a secured 'black box' capable of withstanding the explosion. It can be programmed to transmit the information back to us several seconds after the breach." "Make it so." The Captain ordered. "If that is the case, then I believe we have already done it." Atom referenced a causality loop, as he tapped his console to move the ship another few moments into the future. As time began to move, the data transmission came in. After several seconds, it was complete. The Captain and her crew split up and analyzed the data from the black box transmission. Commander Span chimed in, "Captain, you may want to hear this. I have an audio recording from the bridge." The dialogue between Q and the Captain sounded for all to hear. "Q..." The captain sneered. "Isn't the Q entity supposedly omnipotent?" Span inquired. Aznia raised an eyebrow, "Then why are we still here? From what I know, Q doesn't have a history of that kind of violence without good reason... Our actions with this anomaly may present some weakness to the Q. If it didn't, he would be in here now, putting an end to our plans." --- The Federalist again prepared to leave the anomaly. This time, the ship crept out at low impulse, hanging mere meters off the surface of the anomaly. They began to feign further scans of the surface in effort to deceive Q. Aznia stood up from her chair, Q appearing in her place, as expected. Taking this cue, En'thaaz immediately descended the ship back into the anomaly. Q jumped up from the chair in panic, "No!!" he swirled his fingers in the air to escape, but had no success. "Your powers don't work here, Q." Aznia stated with a sense of satisfaction. "Captain, this does not change your situation. The second you leave..." Q was cut off. "What? You'll kill us again? What if we just leave you behind?" Aznia enjoyed the chance to intimidate a Q. Q smiled at the rare surprise of a worthy adversary. "Azzy, baby, you just don't know what you're doing here." Aznia rolled here eyes. Q continued "If you do anything to me, another member of the continuum will be ready to stop you when you leave. We can not allow you to continue these experiments!" "Because we're outside of your power." Aznia stated as a matter of fact. Q waxed and waned... "Sort of." he nodded "Let's just put it in terms you can understand and say 'yes'. You're outside the scope of our power. Like a monkey with nuclear arms. OK?" "I can't let you kill my crew." Aznia pleaded with Q for an answer. "Look, I don't want to do it, but the continuum made up their mind! The knowledge and processes you've acquired here can not be harnessed by the Federation for at least another 250 years! Literally the fate of all space-time could depend on it. Your feeble calculations are just not accurate enough to play with!" Q demanded. "What if we agree to stop these experiments... to suppress all knowledge we've acquired." Aznia pleaded. Q shook his head. "Your species aren't all the most trustworthy..." he looked at Commander Span "Vulcans alone are some of the most deceptive liars in the galaxy!" Span simply raised an eyebrow. "Look, Q. We need to solve this situation, or else we'll be sitting here in stalemate for a very, very long time." Captain Deet delivered the ultimatum. "This planet." Aznia gestured to the gas giant "If we had not discovered this chroniton rich planet, we would've never run these experiments." "That's all well and good, but your walking, talking toaster still has the idea in his head." Q gestured to Lt. Atom, "If you allow us to dismantle him, I could find a way to spare the rest of your crew." "Captain, please agree to it." Atom pleaded. "No." Aznia wouldn't budge. Q rolled his eyes. "You'll hinge a deal for your life on the fate of a glorified Buick..." he scoffed. "Mr. Atom, if I were to give you an order to delete all of this research, and conceal it forever, would you do it?" Aznia asked. Atom nodded. "Of course." Aznia suggested a final solution. "Q, if we leave the anomaly, would you be able to travel back in time?" "Of course, Mon Capitan." Q answered. "If I record a message with orders for Atom, could you deliver it to his quarters say- one week ago? Then interfere with our ship's sensors to prevent the discovery of this planet. None of us need know you were involved." Q nodded, satisfied. "I hope I'm not making a mistake by trusting you." Aznia relented. "Mr. En'thaaz, take us out." The moment the Federalist crossed the anomaly's barrier, a flash of light encompassed the bridge. The crew was gone, leaving only Aznia and Q. "Where are they..." Aznia looked around, seeing no stars on the viewscreen "Where are we!" she demanded in a panic. Q raised his hands as to bring calm upon the situation. "I'm not tricked very often. I would've gotten away with simply destroying you, if I hadn't overplayed my hand by visiting you first. I got reckless- which is exactly what you did too. You caught the great and magnificent Q off guard... I don't know if you understand how special that is, but it would be awfully unfair to take such a rare accomplishment away from a mere mortal... though you have no idea how close you came from transcending beyond that." "If surprising the Q is such a rare and special event, then why have you gone to such lengths to limit our opportunities to do so again? Aznia asked rhetorically. Q smiled widely "You've got to work very hard to keep something rare and special when you're as powerful as we... oh, and don't worry about the rest of the continuum. I'll deal with them. Farewell, Azzy..." he raised an eyebrow "...until next time." Q flashed out of the picture, and Aznia found herself sitting at her desk in her Ready Room, 2 days prior. Lt. Atom sat across from her, waiting for approval to pursue his experiment. Aznia's face turned to sadness as she informed her science officer of the bad news, "Mr. Atom, I have to order you to delete every bit of that data from the computer, and erase that planet from our sensor logs." "But Captain, the potential for discovery here is..." Aznia cut the Android off "The potential for discovery is amazing. But the stakes are much higher than you are aware. Please, Mr. Atom, as a friend, and as your commanding officer, I need you to follow this order." The Android was taken aback. He stood from his chair, expressionless. "It will be done, Captain." Aznia smiled at Atom. Atom looked back expressing confusion, but he did nod as to say 'you can trust me' before the doors to the bridge slid shut behind him.